Chiropractor doing my head in

I've had debilitating sciatica for nearly a month, mostly confined to bed. I went to a chiropractor who initially said it was a soft tissue issue but then after viewing my X-ray said it was a herniated disc and might need surgery. The day he said that my pain increased. I went looking for answers and found Healing back Pain. I listened to the book and felt like Dr Sarno was talking about me. I accepted I had TMS and immediately began to improve.

Yesterday the chiropractor came here to bring my slip for the MRI. I tried to explain to him everything I've learned and how I felt a bit better and hopeful I would be healed.

He didn't want to hear anything. He says my disc is different. It has broken sideways and is causing my spine to be crooked. I admit in the last month or so I'm walking crooked but I think it's the pain from the muscle spasm. He says no it is the disc. He believes the only choice is fusion surgery which I am completely against. I feel so demoralised. Now my TMS work is blocked. I can only think of that disc and the crooked spine and surgery.

I know Dr Sarno says there are some issues that can't be fixed using TMS ideas. Could mine be one? Are there such disc problems as the chiropractor is describing? I live in Botswana so I don't have access to TMS doctors. I am going for the MRI and I will ask the people there but I know the TMS ideas are not well understood here. Honestly I really feel what I have is TMS. I had a lot of stress the four months before this episode and my personality fits Dr Sarno's description.

Hi. Interesting how your pain increased when you were told about herniated discs! I remember being overcome with nausea when surgery was mentioned to me. I was diagnosed with sciatica, large herniated discs (allegedly pressing on a nerve causing pain) and degenerative disc disease. Surgery was my only option after trying chiro, steroids, p/t and drugs. Very grateful to have learned about Dr. Sarno before agreeing to surgery.

One thing that told me my herniated discs were not the cause of my pain (besides Dr. Sarno telling me!) was a book called Spontaneous Healing by Dr. Andrew Weil. It is short stories of people's healing. My SIL had brought it over to me along with Mind Over Back Pain. I looked in the index and sure enough there was a story about herniated discs. The guy actually had multiple shattered discs. Of course most MDs blamed his back pain on those. Not Dr. Sarno. The guy became pain-free. At that point I knew there was hope for me. This guy whose discs were shattered was better, so I believed my herniated discs were not causing my pain and I moved ahead full steam with believing that I would be better soon too. And I was. I used the time that I was stuck in bed (weeks) to journal each day. So healing took some work and discomfort with what I was bringing up about the past and present, but it was well worth being up and around and living normal life again.

If you see yourself on the pages of HBP, you are answering your own question. I think it's natural to have doubts in this world as everything is commonly blamed on something physical. It's how doctors are trained and how the public has learned. That doesn't make it true!

Oh, and I had an acquaintance who was a chiro too. He was sure he could help me. After seeing him twice I would feel better for about 20 minutes and then the pain came back. I knew he did not have the answer for me at that point. They believe in their own method. He didn't want to hear about Sarno either but he could not argue with the results he saw in me (occasionally saw him as he was former neighbor). Your chiro is probably sure about his own method too.

Check out the Structured Educational program on this site and keep reading HBP. Dr. Sarno prescribes reading EVERY DAY for the info to sink into our brains. If you truly believe in TMS you will be healed as well!

Thank you Lori. Yes I'm doing the programme and reading and writing. I'm a writer by profession but I've never kept a journal. I've started one now- my healing journal. My only concern was Dr Sarno saying that there are some real medical problems that are not TMS. Though he said discs are not one of them, the way this chiro was talking about my particular case worried me.

Anyway, I've decided no chiro this week, I can't cope with his negative talk and work on my TMS. I'll go for the MRI and hear what they say but still work on my TMS. I think for this to work I need to be focused.

ok, just be prepared for what the results of the MRI will show. It likely will not be encouraging to you. Mine clearly showed 2 herniations and one appeared to be pressing on a nerve--as explained to me. I remember feeling scared.

Yet I chose to go the Dr. Sarno route and am glad I did. Had I learned of him sooner than I did, I would not have had the MRI. The x ray had already shown DDD and herniations.

I remember wondering if I was the exception and if mine was structural pain. But clearly it wasn't. Figure how many people have herniated discs or something similar going on, and are up and around just fine!

There's strong evidence that suggests, LauriK, that the pressure of a herniated disk on a nerve would be insufficient to cause generalized sciatic pain in the first place. Might be physically impossible for soft tissue pressing on soft tissue not to give sufficient space for the nerve to function properly. You've read Sarno, so you know how the medical establishment wants to "blame the pain" on structural anomalies even though there is no convincing statistical proof for the diagnosis. I'm not a doctor of course and can't diagnose or prescribe treatment. But I do know that a good 70% of people without back pain also have spinal anomalies including herniated disks. If herniation inevitably causes pain, how are all those people walking around pain-free? I know it's probably impossible not to be affected by seeing your MRI, but I'd steel my will against being suckered into believing what it shows is at the root of your back pain and sciatica.

Hi BruceMC. I read that 100% of autopsies on people over 50 show disc degeneration, I'm 49. I told the chiro that and he said my disc collapse was different. I knew then there was no need to even explain to him about TMS.

the pain came on slowly for months, probably 6 months or so, then WHACK knocked me on my back for about six weeks. Literally. I learned of Dr. Sarno in December, called his office to make appt but he was away for the holidays. I called the 2nd of January and saw him the next day. He told me "you will be sitting again sooner than you know" as he watched me lying on his office floor unable to sit or stand. I intensely did the program and a week later was able to sit in the car for a short ride to the grocery store. I made it for about 10 minutes in the store till I felt I had to lie down. But that was progress. A week after that I could walk and sit again. A week or so later I returned to work on a shortened schedule but quickly realized I could be back full time since the pain was gone.

I took his advice very seriously as my life-as-I-knew-it really was at stake. I spent hours every day writing the "essays" he prescribed about childhood and current issues (aka journaling) and it was very very therapeutic. Crying, yelling, etc. included. I read every day about how tms worked and let it sink into my brain. I wanted to get out of that bed and back to normal, and I used the time I was stuck there wisely.

This forever changed my life for the better. Being stuck like that was a wake-up call for me and i'm grateful for the things I've learned. Now as soon as I get any pain or condition, I think about what's going on in my life or what past event may have recently come to mind. Many times it requires action like journaling the feelings out and finding a new perspective. Last week I suddenly had a cold sore on my lip. Immediately I looked for a connection and realized I needed to speak up to someone, which I did the next day. And yes, there went the cold sore.

There are many details in my profile on this site, in fact, a short and long version, and a list of helpful hints.

Your story sounds a lot like mine. I've had all sorts of stress since the end of last year. In January I started having pain, in my heel first which forced me to stop my morning aerobics. Then pain in my opposite hip. Then I started walking crooked because of the pain. Then I had a big stress from my daughter at university. We had to rush there. We came back the next morning I couldn't get out if bed. I knew from the start this was caused by stress. I only understood better when I read Dr Sarno's book.

I'm about a month now with this but today was good. I really worked on my fear of the pain today and it worked. I swam for about 30 min and managed to take a shower without crying. And I've managed to walk a bit more around the house. Slowly slowly I'm seeing improvement.

I'm going to your profile now. The success of people like you gives me hope.

the pain came on slowly for months, probably 6 months or so, then WHACK knocked me on my back for about six weeks.

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The time line you describe, Lori and LauriK, sounds all too reminiscent of my first (and worst) episode of TMS. My mother died in January 2001 after I had been taking care of her for five years, but I kept on working full blast at a contract as if nothing had happened. Stiff upper lip! Stuffing it! Then, the contract ended abruptly and when I went out running, my left leg started to have symptoms of sciatica. Next, I inherited my late mothers house almost at exactly the same moment I lost $20 grand on the market buying telecom stocks just as the Dot.com bust imploded. And of course the mysterious pain just kept increasing slowly as I ran more and more in a frantic effort to blot out my stressors with an athletic high. One night I came back home and decided I'd really stretch to get rid of the pain once and for all. Bango! Catastrophic back attack leading to 6-weeks in bed and then on to PT for a whole year of stretching, bending and lifting. The whole process from onset of stinging in my leg to major catastrophic lower lumbar pain took approximately 6 months to unfold. But back then I assumed it all occurred because of the pounding my lower lumbar region was taking due to the incessant running. Back then, before Dr Sarno opened my eyes, I never for a moment realized that the onset of my sciatica coincided with my mother's death, inheriting her house, losing an important lucrative contract, and taking a dumping on the market. Once you see that TMS is really driven by your own psychology and not by a "bad back" or "spinal degeneration" is the moment you begin to get rid of it once and for all. It's just so obvious that my TMS was driven by a sequence of stressors that produced emotions that were very hard to bear and which accumulated in the course of a short period of time.

Thanks for your success story BruceMC. I'm a lot like that, swallow the pain and stress. I'm going to change now.
Lori I read your profile and wanted to read that article you linked about journellling but for some reason the link was not working.